Welcome to Caldew School's Website

I would like to wish you a warm welcome to Caldew School, a happy and vibrant place where dedicated, highly motivated teachers inspire students to achieve their goals.

Vision Statement

Where every student is successful today and prepared for tomorrow

Aspire Believe Achieve

We aim to provide the very best learning and personal development opportunities for every young person that we serve. Our students enjoy a high quality education in a school where they feel valued and cared for. We know our students well and learning is tailored to ensure that each child achieves their potential and beyond. As Headteacher, I am committed to nurturing, motivating and inspiring all individuals to recognise their worth, develop their self-belief and strive to achieve their aspirations and goals. I feel very privileged to be able to work with young people who endlessly impress me with their talents, skills and contributions both within and beyond the classroom.

Established over 50 years ago Caldew has earned a well-deserved reputation as a school where students of all abilities excel. We cater for just over 1000 young people aged 11-18 years of whom 150 are in full time post 16 education in the school’s flourishing Sixth Form. Our school is big enough to enable us to provide a wide range of courses to match learners’ strengths and interests. Yet it is not so big that we cannot get to know them all well and help them develop into unique and self-confident individuals.

Our students follow a traditional curriculum, regularly achieving the highest levels of attainment possible, with substantial numbers progressing to the most prestigious universities.

We remain, though, a comprehensive school and as such welcome students of all abilities. Academic success is important and we place a high premium on equipping our students with the qualifications and skills they will need for their future working lives. We expect them to become the leaders of tomorrow in whatever field they choose to develop their careers. For some this will be by gaining degrees at Oxbridge or other universities, for others through further education or apprenticeships. Each route is equally valuable and it is by ensuring that every student maximises their potential, achieving the best results possible, that we secure this for every one of them in our care.

Expectations and standards are high. Whether it is students’ progress, classwork, homework, uniform or behaviour, we accept nothing less than excellence from each individual. Our partnership with parents is also very important to us. We firmly believe that students, parents and teachers must work closely together if we are to support every young person to unlock their potential and achieve.

As a school community, we constantly challenge ourselves to learn and improve. It is dedication to lifelong learning and high ambitions that enables staff and students alike to inspire each other on to ever greater heights. This is the spirit in which every Caldew student develops during their time with us.

Games Night is Back!

The PE department introduced Games Night to make extracurricular sport available to all our students. This takes place every Tuesday night and a free bus is available to take students back to Carlisle at 4:30pm. Students should sign up in advance by 1:00pm on Mondays at the PE office if they wish to take the bus. More information about the Games Bus is on the Clubs/After School page.

The exact activities at present are football, rugby, netball and hockey. With fixtures taking place on Wednesday and Thursday nights along with various other after-school activities, we hope that this approach will enable as many students as possible to participate. The games on offer will change as the year progresses and the weather and hours of daylight change.

GCSE Results

Students and staff at Caldew School are celebrating our students’ GCSE results. Vicki Jackson, Headteacher, said “We are proud of our students’ achievements in their GCSE examinations. This is especially true this year when there have been more changes than ever to the grading system, grade boundaries and performance measures. The most significant changes have been in English and Mathematics and we are pleased with our results in these subjects. I want to congratulate all of our students for these results that are a testament to their dedication, resilience and hard work.”

Standout results include Karl Edwards who achieved grade 9 in Maths, grade 7s in English Language and Literature and a further 6 A*s, 1 A and 2 Bs, Amy Gardhouse who achieved grade 8 in Maths, 1 A*, 5 As, 2 Bs, grade 6 in English Literature and grade 5 in English Language, Grace Johnston achieved an outstanding 2 grade 9s in English Literature and Language along with 2 A*s, 2 As, 2 Bs, grade 5 in Maths and 2 Cs, Christie Elliot who achieved grade 9 in English Language, grade 6 in English Literature and Maths, 1 A*, 3 As and 4 Bs, Damon Carr who achieved grade 8s in Maths along with 1 A*, 3 As, 3 Bs and grade 5s in English Language and Literature, Nathan Harmon who achieved grade 8s in Maths along with other 1 A*, 3 As, grade 7 in English Literature, 4 Bs and a grade 6 in English Language, Alex Tonge who achieved 2 A*s, 3 As, grade 8 in English Literature, grade 7 in English Language, grade 6 in Maths, 1 B and 2 Cs, Lauren Mathias who achieved grade 8 in English Literature, grade 7 in English Language and Maths, 1 A*, 2 As and 5 Bs, Adam Sixsmith who achieved 3 A*s, 2 As, grade 7s in Maths and English Literature, grade 6 in English Language, 1 B and 1 C, Andrew Cox who achieved grade 8 in Maths, grade 7s in English Literature and Language and a further 2 A*s, 4 As, 1 B and 1 C, Adam Smith who achieved grade 7 in Maths, grade 6s in English Literature and Language and a further 2 A*s, 3 As, 2 Bs and 1 C, Hannah Allen who achieved, grade 7s in Maths and English Language, 1 A*, 3 As, grade 6 in English Literature and 4 Bs, Hollie Tweedie who achieved grade 8 in English Literature, grade 7 in Maths, grade 6 in English Language, 4 As and 4 Bs, Ben Codona who achieved 1 A*, 2 As, grade 6 in Maths, grade 5 in English Language, grade 4 in English Literature and 4 Cs.

AS/A Level Results

We are once again delighted with our students’ A level results. Overall the results have maintained our strong record at A level with improvements in many areas. We are particularly pleased that a third of students achieved at least one A*/A grade and 62% of all students achieved at least one of the top grades (A*/A/B). The overwhelming majority of Caldew’s students will be able to attend their first choice university, and will study courses including sciences, languages, engineering, computing and the arts at some of the country’s top universities. Standout results include Andrew Tyson with one A*and two As who will be going to Lancaster University to study Mechanical Engineering, Orla Giles with three As who will be going to the University of Sheffield to study Biomedical Sciences, Katrina Ellams with three As who will be pursuing a course in Veterinary Science and Joshua Richardson with three As who will be studying Computer Science at the University of Nottingham.

Vicki Jackson, Headteacher, said “Our students deserve congratulating on achieving excellent results again this year. They have worked tirelessly over the last two years, leading to results that exemplify their determination to fulfil their aspirations. I feel very proud to see so many of our Year 13 students able to progress to a new chapter in their lives, whether this be at university, on an apprenticeship or in the workplace. I wish each and every one of our students well as they move on to the next stage of their careers and look forward to hearing about their continued success. I would also like to thank all the teachers at Caldew School for their hard work and commitment that has helped our students be successful.”

Year 12 AS level results also showed an improvement with an increase in both the pass rate and the number of students achieving the top grades. We look forward to welcoming students back into Year 13 in September.

Twitter Profile

Online Reading Lists

Sports

Pupil Premium

Read on our Pupil Premium Page how we spent our Pupil Premium money in previous years and what we are doing in 2016-17 to narrow the gap between the attainment of Pupil Premium students and our other students.

Year 7 Catch Up

Learners of the Week

Congratulations to the following students who have been chosen by Heads of Year to receive the Learners of the Week award:

Year 7 - Jonny Bedford and Blythe Jackson for showing real community spirit in their speech at the Open Evening. They made us all really proud.
Year 8 - Alfie Barnes for receiving two outstanding nominations: in SMD for a great analysis of Malala and sharing his opinion of why he considers her an inspiration and from English for showing a consistently positive attitude, excellent analysis, constantly striving to achieve, being helpful and community minded
Year 9 - Natalie Sisson for excellent homework annotating the painting Progress from 1872 by John Gast
Year 10 - Bethany Elliott. She has been working really hard in English resulting in some great analysis of characters in An Inspector Calls, puts lots of effort into her homework and always volunteers to be helpful or to play a role during lessons. She has shown great aspiration to make progress in English.
Year 11 - Peter Mullins for demonstrating a positive attitude and showing resilience I when he gave his presentation in English.
6th Form - Millie Postlethwaite for being supportive in Geography and Emilia Burbury for her wider contribution to 6th Form including Young Enterprise and the talk she gave at the Year 6 Open evening which was fantastic.

Headteacher's Learners of the Week

Jonathan Bedford, Blythe Jackson and Emilia Burbury have been chosen as the Headteachers Learners of the Week by Ms Jackson for their outstanding speeches at Open Evening. They were great ambassadors for the school and showed to our visitors what wonderful students we have here at Caldew.

Year 12 Option Form

The Year 12 Option Form for September 2017 for Caldew students can be found here.

The Year 12 Option Form for September 2017 for students from other schools can be found here.

Dress Code

Year 13 Progression

This term is a vital one for Year 13 students who are either applying to university or looking to apply for jobs and apprenticeships to start when A Levels are complete. Students will be working with tutors on developing their applications this term and if you have any queries on any aspect of this please contact your son or daughter’s form tutor.

Year 12

Year 12 will be developing their study skills with a course of lessons delivered by Mrs Bell in the library over the coming weeks. These lessons should help them to develop the skills needed to be an independent sixth form student and are a major part of helping Year 12 adjust to the demands of sixth form studies. If any parents have any queries about how you can help to support this please contact Mr James at the school.

The Learning Gateway gives you access to the school's data system so that you can see your child’s attainment, attendance and effort data. Through this system it is possible to download and view your child’s full reports as well as their interim reports. It also allows you to view the contact details we have for you so you can check we have the correct information.

NEW: The latest updates to the Learning Gateway now mean that you can view the details from any mobile device such as an iPad, iPhone or Android phone.

We have a resourced provision for Autistic Spectrum Condition students here at Caldew School. Support and intervention is provided in mainstream lessons and within the provision for students with Autism. Social, communication and life skills groups are also provided for these students.